FAA launches BEYOND Phase 2 selection to add new lead participants for advanced UAS integration

On August 27, 2026, United States Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced the launch of Phase 2 of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s BEYOND program, including a Screening Information Request (SIR) to add up to eight state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) lead participants. SLTT applicants – and their industry partners – have until September 10, 2026, to compete for agreements.

This alert discusses BEYOND and its implications for SLTT governments and industry participants.

Background

BEYOND is the FAA’s primary partnership vehicle for integrating unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the national airspace system. It succeeded the UAS Integration Pilot Program (IPP) – established by Presidential Memorandum on October 25, 2017, with nine lead participants – and launched on October 26, 2020, when the IPP concluded by statute. BEYOND has an explicit focus on operating under established rules rather than waivers, collecting data to develop performance-based standards, and collecting and addressing community feedback.[1]

During Phase 1, which ran from 2020 to 2025, participants logged more than 70,000 flights, including more than 48,000 beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations, and the FAA states that the operational and safety data from those flights informed its upcoming BVLOS rule.[2] That rulemaking – which proposes a new 14 C.F.R. part 108 for normalized BVLOS operations – remains pending.[3]

Under the direction of Congress, Section 920 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 directs the Administrator to extend BEYOND and its existing agreements until the Administrator determines the program is no longer necessary or useful, and to consider expanding it to additional state, local, and tribal governments to test and evaluate new and emerging aviation concepts and technologies that will inform FAA policies, rulemaking, and guidance. If expanded, the program must address increasing automation in civil aircraft, operations including BVLOS, and the societal and economic impacts of those operations.[4] Notably, Section 920 also authorizes the Administrator, in carrying out an expansion, to waive the requirements of 49 U.S.C. § 44711 – the general prohibitions on operating without airworthiness, airman, or air carrier certificates and on operating in violation of FAA safety regulations – under any BEYOND program agreement, to the extent that they are consistent with aviation safety.[5]

The FAA launched BEYOND Phase 2 in 2025 to expand the program’s scope and participants,[6] culminating in the August 27 announcement of the expansion of participants, which the FAA says will double the program’s current size. The SIR was issued the same day.

What the FAA is looking for

Phase 2 is organized by four programmatic focus areas – safety, infrastructure, automation, and scalability – and five operational focus areas that the FAA identifies as the greatest challenges to progress: public safety, controlled airspace, remote and rural areas with inadequate infrastructure, on-airport operations, and operations across international borders.[7] Therefore, the FAA may prioritize proposals that incorporate operations exploring larger UAS, longer distances, and higher altitudes, and that align with FAA integration priorities, including operations in open movement areas, integration between air traffic management (ATM) and unmanned traffic management (UTM), cross-border operations, public safety and public health, and evolving UTM operations involving larger UAS at higher altitudes.[8]

According to the FAA, six program-level key performance indicators (KPIs) will measure progress:

1. Milestone completion (at least 60 percent cumulative at one year, 90 percent over the program)
2. Increased automation
3. Drone safety (a stable or decreasing trend in incidents and near-mid-air collisions)
4. Interoperability through FAA acceptance and expansion of UTM services
5. Implementation of consensus standards
6. Societal and economic impact analysis for FAA policymaking

In their proposals, applicants are encouraged to explain how operations will generate data to support each KPI and define up front any limits on operational, maintenance, or anomaly data that can be shared with the FAA.[9]

Implications

For SLTT governments, BEYOND selection offers what waiver-by-waiver practice does not: a standing, structured channel to the FAA on key UAS integration problems, with the statute expressly contemplating waiver of Section 44711’s certification prohibitions under BEYOND agreements where consistent with safety. Phase 1’s record shows that the FAA credited lead participants’ operational data for informing the pending BVLOS rulemaking, giving participants an opportunity to shape the rules that govern the industry.[10] Given the two-week response window, interested SLTTs are encouraged to define goals, secure partners, obtain attestation letters, and confirm System for Award Management (SAM) registration as soon as possible.

For industry (e.g., operators, manufacturers, UTM and command-and-control or detect-and-avoid service providers, and infrastructure players), opportunities to participate in BEYOND Phase 2 require an SLTT team. Because partner roles must be spelled out with specificity and role clarity in an express evaluation element, industry participants are encouraged to engage prospective SLTT primes now and be prepared to commit to concrete responsibilities, executed teaming agreements or letters of intent, and defined data-sharing positions. The requirement to state what operational, maintenance, and anomaly data can be shared with the FAA may warrant early attention: It is both an evaluation consideration and a future operating constraint that may be worth negotiating deliberately.[11]

DLA Piper’s aviation team advises SLTT governments and UAS industry participants on FAA engagement strategy, Other Transaction Agreements, BVLOS approvals, and the pending part 108 rulemaking, and is available to assist with proposal strategy, teaming arrangements, and question submissions.

For more information, please contact the authors.

 

_{[1] FAA, Screening Information Request No. 697DCK-26-R-00423, FAA BEYOND Phase 2 Selection, at 3–4 (Aug. 27, 2026), available at https://sam.gov/opp/b8846e3cecb8416789707e863411666e/view.}

_{[2] Press Release, FAA, Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Announces Major Expansion of FAA BEYOND Program to Advance Drone Innovation (Aug. 27, 2026), https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/trumps-transportation-secretary-sean-p-duffy-announces-major-expansion-faa-beyond-program; see SIR, supra note 1, at 4.}

_{[3] Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations, 90 Fed. Reg. 38,212 (proposed Aug. 7, 2025), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/08/07/2025-14992/normalizing-unmanned-aircraft-systems-beyond-visual-line-of-sight-operations.}

_{[4] FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, Pub. L. No. 118-63, § 920, 138 Stat. 1025, 1353–54, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-118publ63/html/PLAW-118publ63.htm. Section 920(b)(1) refers to additional “State, local, and Tribal governments”; the SIR’s eligibility criteria also include territorial governments. See SIR, supra note 1, at 7.}

_{[5] See 49 U.S.C. § 44711(a); Pub. L. No. 118-63, § 920(b)(3), 138 Stat. at 1354.}

_{[6] SIR, supra note 1, at 4.}

_{[7] SIR, supra note 1, at 4–5.}

_{[8] Id. at 11.}

_{[9] Id. at 5–7, 12.}

_{[10] FAA Press Release, supra note 2; see Pub. L. No. 118-63, § 920(b)(3), 138 Stat. at 1354.}

_{[11] SIR, supra note 1, at 12, 15.}